Up Close and Personal
by Dizzo
Summary: The boys find themselves in a compromising situation involving some trolls, a trunk, oh, and a very snotty nose.


UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Another one-shot effort in aid of the 'again with More Colds' meme over on Lj ...

The boys find themselves in a compromising situation involving some trolls, a trunk, oh, and a snotty nose.

I'm not entirely sure what dark, and cobweb-swept corner of my imagination this one came from, but I sure as heck wouldn't want to go there too often!

Disclaimer: I don't own the boys and I'm sure they're delighted about that fact.

xxxxx

In hindsight, it wasn't one of Sam's best ideas.

Sure, they had been roaming through this grubby old ruin investigating a suspected spirit manifestation and so hadn't been expecting to discover that the cause of the mysterious noises and unsavoury smells was a nest of trolls in the basement. A nest of trolls who had, in turn, taken great umbrage at being disturbed.

That being the case, salt rounds were going to do about as much damage as a fart in a thunderstorm, so on the basis that discretion is the better part of valour, hiding from the highly pissed and monumentally stupid creatures until the boys had a chance to slip out to the Impala and rearm appropriately had originally seemed like a sound strategy.

And the trunk? Well it had looked fairly big from the outside, couple that with the fact that the ancient, practically derelict house was not exactly gifted with a bewildering choice of hidey-holes, it seemed like a simple choice; Hobson's choice.

Now here in the dark, fetid interior of said trunk, lying under an unco-operative, fidgeting brother who weighed about a metric tonne, in a tangled and contorted knot of bodies; Sam could think of at least three very good reasons why this was the crappiest idea ever in a long and spectacular history of crap ideas.

Firstly his own dimensions; long limbs, big feet and a chest like the back of a freight train were all very well in the outside world, but here in this stupid trunk they were taking up way too much space, folded and crumpled into uncomfortable positions which they really weren't ever designed to be folded and crumpled into.

Second was Dean. Dean was smaller than Sam, but given that about 99% of the adult human race would have fallen into that category on any one day, that didn't mean for a minute that he was in any way petite or dainty.

He was in fact six foot and 180 pounds of rock solid muscle that was at this moment wrapped around Sam's torso like a nightmarishly heavy and extremely sulky rucksack which didn't seem to understand the concept of 'for the love of God Dean, keep the hell still."

Right at the moment, Dean's right elbow was wedged firmly into Sam's ribcage, and his sweaty armpit was wrapped around his younger brother's face, but Sam just decided to run with it; it was a walk in the park compared to where Dean's knee had just been.

The third reason was the 'flu; good old fashioned, cough-your-guts-up, germ-ridden, drippy 'flu. Living in close quarters with a diseased, mouth-breathing, snot-head of a brother was one thing, but sharing fifty four dark, musty cubic feet with him was another matter entirely.

Sam's extremities were numb; his crushed lungs were losing the power to process oxygen, his core body temperature was about thirty degrees above healthy thanks to the feverish lump wrapped around him blowing hot, wet breath into his ear, his neck was twisted into a position that Seabiscuit would have struggled to achieve ...

Yep, of all the situations the Winchesters had gotten themselves into, there hadn't been many that sucked a whole lot more than this.

xxxxx

Sam cringed as a wet snuffle preceded a warm drip onto his neck and clamped his mouth closed, resisting the urge to curse loudly as he heard heavy shuffling footsteps approaching the trunk.

Both holding their breath, the brothers froze, wide-eyed, staring through the darkness at each other.

Another warm drip; this time onto Sam's chin. This latest effusion was followed up with a lavish sniff.

Sam glared; "Dean!" he hissed, horribly aware of the heavy lumbering steps and loud, groaning breaths lingering barely inches away from them on the other side of the trunk, but apparently not interested in it. Sam thanked heaven and earth for the moronic stupidity of trolls

"Can' friggid' help it," Dean hissed back petulantly; raising his arm to stifle a coughing fit. Sam winced as the heavy, spasmodic jerks of Dean's frustrated diaphragm protesting its denied right to hack up a lung drilled his aching back a little further into the dusty, unyielding bottom of the trunk.

Both brothers froze as Dean's knuckles grazed the wall of the trunk in his attempts to maintain some degree of silence.

"Crap."

They froze again, straining to hear the movements of the heavy figure beside their hiding place; the footsteps had paused, but it's long, rattling breaths continued; hauntingly slow, wheezing moans that filled the room with a damp, uncomfortable misery and vibrated around the inside of the trunk, drilling into the Winchesters' heads like a jackhammer.

"Jeez, sounds like a goddab asthbatic brodtosaurus out there," Dean whispered petulantly, his raw, wet nose wrinkling in disgust.

"Remind you of anyone?" snapped Sam angrily, trying to extricate a crushed and bloodless foot from between Dean's shin and the corner of the trunk.

Dean made a point of sniffing up another dewdrop that was targeting Sam's nose, and mumbled sourly into into his brother's shoulder.

Abruptly prompting Dean to be quiet with a raised palm; Sam almost poked his thumb up his brother's nose in the confined darkness; "shut up, listen…"

The Winchesters both froze, falling silent again; holding their breath as the slow, shambling footsteps and the doleful grunts and groans gradually receded into the distance.

"Sonofabitch; we might just hab godden away with this …" snuffled Dean, wiping his nose on Sam's collar.

"Thank God." Sam sighed, his eyes drifting closed with relief.

"Ahh …"

Sam's eyes snapped open again, and through the darkness, could just see Dean's eyelids flutter, his twitching nose stretching as his mouth gaped through the anticipation of an unborn sneeze.

"Ahhhhh …""Dean, don't you dare!" He hissed, "that thing hasn't got far, it'll hear you."

"Can' help it - freakgin' … ahhhhhh … !"

Sam felt his brother's chest swell, and thrust his hand over Dean's gaping mouth.

"phhuuttcchhh …"

A hot, wet blast filled his palm.

Sam's nose wrinkled in disgust; "Done?" He snorted.

Dean snuffled wetly, wiping his nose on his cuff, and clattered the side of the trunk with his elbow in the process; "thigk so," he whispered gruffly.

Sam scowled and wiped his soaked hand across Dean's hunched back.

Sam closed his eyes and pulled in a breath as deep as he could manage under the circumstances and under his brother. Two minutes, that's all; just a couple more minutes in this hellish disease pit then they can get out of here, have a stretch then blast the trolls to kingdom come. No more giant slab of a brother crushing his rib-cage, no more moaning and whining, no more bodily fluids …

"... nggyyaahh ... gaaahhhAACHOOO ..."

The jolt from his brother's body pummelled Sam down against the bottom of the trunk, squeezing any last remaining dregs of air out of his battered lungs as the spectacular force of the sneeze rocked the trunk's lid back on it's hinges, peppering Sam's face point blank with warm spit and left a ringing echo in both brothers' ears.

Sam heard the lumbering footsteps as they slowly approached the trunk again and scowled, wiping his face as Dean sniffled sheepishly above him.

Yep, as crappy ideas went, this was the motherload …

xxxxx

end


End file.
